


An Uncommon Fish

by kinetikatrue



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Food, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 08:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17701160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: An interlude aboard ship, between the old reality and the new.





	An Uncommon Fish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reine_des_corbeaux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/gifts).



The wave crests, and down its falling flank slides an improbable figure: a boy lashed to a battered fragment of mast, who appears to take no notice of the nearby boat. _Where has he come from? How long has he been adrift like this? Had he been tied to the boat before it came apart - or did that part come after?_

All this flashes through Antonio's mind in seconds - moments later he's calling orders to his men: to hold the ship's position, to have the boy fished from the sea, to bring something warm to wrap the boy in and warmed wine for him to drink.

It's hardly any time at all before the boy - but, no, Antonio finds he must correct himself at closer view: the young man, for all his slender beardlessness - is laid upon the deck, still attached to his fortuitous bit of flotsam, looking all but drowned. One of the mates is at work untying the sodden knots that bind him thusly. Antonio studies the face above the black doublet and finds in it beauty, but also, as the eyes finally flutter open, a returning depth of weariness and sorrow that belies the more obvious youth.

And then the youth is coughing, spewing forth half the contents of the sea whilst straining against the binds that still restrain him. It breaks the spell he's had on Antonio, still mysterious but just as obviously mortal.

"Oh, I thought 'twas but a dream - or, mayhap, a nightmare," he says, eventually, voice rough from the coughing.

"Nay, lad - you did not drown." The gruff mate tells him as he sets to work on the last of the knots.

As soon as the ropes have fallen away and the lad has been wrapped in warm blankets, Antonio offers the him his hand and helps him to his feet. "Welcome aboard the Black Hawk. I'm the captain, Antonio - and if it pleases you, you shall rest in my cabin and regain your strength."

There's a fragment of a pause before the lad answers, says firmly, "And I am Roderigo, sir. Your offer is most welcome."

"Then it shall be so," Antonio says, and shepherds Roderigo off to the comforts of warmth and sheltering walls.

***

When the sailor bearing the warmed wine comes tapping at Antonio's cabin door, he's carrying food, as well. A bowl of the bread soup the crew will have for their nuncheon, a hunk of cheese balanced on its lip - and a bulging pouch. The ship's cook is clearly feeling kindly towards their new passenger.

He interrupts their struggle to undo the fastenings holding Roderigo's doublet closed - and Antonio's offer to 'take my knife to them.'

Antonio tells the man, "Give me the wine - set the rest of it on my chest"

Roderigo intercepts the pouch, tests the heft of it, and says, "thank you - and thank the cook," in a way that speaks just as clearly to his birth as the quality of his clothes.

And then the sailor is bobbing a courtesy and out the door to return to his duties.

The pouch, opened, spills plump figs across the blankets covering Antonio's bunk - and, for the first time since he's come aboard, Roderigo smiles, though still a trifle sadly. "The fig trees in my father's garden were heavy with fruit when we set to sea...I thought to miss their season entirely."

Antonio plucks one from its nest amongst the covers, holds it up to Roderigo's mouth. "So the season has come to you."

Roderigo bites into it, cleaving its flesh in twain - and closing his eyes as he savors its taste. For a time, they forget entirely that he'd meant to remove his still-damp clothes. Antonio can't find it in himself to regret this: not least for the sight Roderigo makes as he tips his head back, exposing his neck, as he chews and swallows.

***

One of the chiefest benefits to the cabin allotted to him as captain is the bed, sizable enough to allow for him to keep a wife or a bedmate with him should he so choose. It easily accommodates the addition of a slender youth, clad in Antonio's third-best shirt. This does not mean, however, that Antonio might not wish for a little more - or a little less - room between them. Roderigo, for all his willingness to eat fruit straight from Antonio's fingers, has remained otherwise an island unto himself.

A pleasant companion, but no more.

And Antonio could no more begrudge him this, fresh from a shipwreck and near-drowning (the details of which he seems disinclined to share), than he could the sharing of his clothing and food and bed. His foolish heart is entirely to blame if he wishes for anything more. And it does, greedily, foolishly, already far too fondly. As the winds go whistling by outside the cabin, setting the ropes to creaking - and the waves rock the ship steady-steady - he finds he cannot sleep for watching Roderigo do the same, clearly overtired from his unexpectedly exciting day.

So he is awake when Roderigo murmurs in his sleep, "No, no - Vi - No...," and there to place one calming hand on his brow, and to slide it gently down the curve of his cheek and bring it to rest on the tip of his shoulder. And to wonder, but not ask, what Roderigo finds to protest in his dreams. If somehow, in the night, this leads to them curling around each other, well, that is for the morning.

For now, there are the two of them and the darkness and all the room for secrets.


End file.
